COVID-19 raged through the country, causing immense disruptions within communities as they struggled to support each other, whether for food, safety supplies, health information, or social support. In response to the decrease of in-person social interaction, this study explores the role that public space plays--such as sidewalks, parks, or parking lots--as essential communicative spaces for providing social support during a pandemic. This research focuses on the last ten months of 2020 and how public space can play a crucial role for local communities and neighborhoods to find ways to safely and socially connect and uplift each other. This study asks: What acts/activities did individuals facilitate or engage in to support their local community or neighborhood's social well-being during the year 2020? How was public space utilized or adapted for social support? And lastly, what can be learned from the design of public spaces to better support communities during challenging times? This exploratory study collected hundreds of pandemic-related reports drawing from various local sources, from media to personal accounts. These were intentionally uplifting, socially supportive activities that ranged from signage to performances to art displays to group interactions occurring in public spaces or visible from public spaces in neighborhoods throughout the Puget Sound region. Reports were analyzed using open coding for patterns related to the type of activity, role and number of people involved, messaging themes, and use or adaptation of public space. Some initial findings reveal creative adaptations of public space, such as art performances and motivational messages. Ultimately, such findings from this study will become a resource for cities to better support communities during times of crisis by providing an understanding of how neighborhoods have adapted and used public spaces.

Good mental health and well-being are essential to fulfillment in all aspects of life, including the workplace. Although there are many factors that influence mental health and well-being, a new, universal stressor has emerged in the past year: the COVID-19 pandemic. While many are socially distancing and working remotely, those employed in the restaurant industry continue to work in a high-risk environment. Restaurant workers were already mentally and financially vulnerable pre-pandemic, earning low wages and experiencing high rates of substance abuse-- and they now face the additional stressor of potential exposure to COVID-19. Ongoing research suggests that restaurant employees are facing unprecedented pandemic-related challenges to their mental health and well-being. This study explores the experience of restaurant employees in Western Washington who interact with the public regarding their communication about mental health and well-being. The main research questions are: a) Are restaurant employees having conversations about mental health and well-being with their coworkers and with their managers? If not, why not?; b) How do restaurant employees describe communicating about mental health and well-being with their coworkers and with their managers?; c) How do the descriptions about communication with coworkers compare to that with managers? To answer these questions, an exploratory cross-sectional survey was conducted to gather self-report data from a nonrandom sample of restaurant employees in Western Washington. At the time of writing this abstract, all data has been collected and the data analysis phase is beginning. By the time of the symposium, I will be able to report key findings on measures including the prevalence of restaurant workers’ conversations about mental health and well-being, with whom they occur, why they may not occur, the specific topics discussed, when and how these conversations take place, and motives prompting these conversations.

Chinese adoptees have played a significant role in the makeup of transnational adoption in the United States. Due to the intense measures of China's One Child Policy from the 1980's to early 2000's, a large influx of Chinese adoptees were brought to the US and became part of many multiracial families. From this, a unique population of Americans today engage in difficult conversations to clarify and defend their own identity in a multiracial family. These conversations can lead to negative psychological and behavioral outcomes that qualitative investigation can aid in addressing. This study aims to investigate how Chinese American adoptees respond and process these comments and conversations that question their legitimacy as a member of their family.  Methods used for research include qualitative interviews and thematic analysis. Analysis will focus on common patterns in adoptees' responses and types of interactions described during the interviews, grounded in the Communication Theory of Resilience. Communication Theory of Reslieience is the interpretive method that highlights the communicative processes by which people reconstruct a new normal after facing adversity. Results will inform us how Chinese American adoptees choose to respond to these comments, and/or how they would like to respond and construct these conversations in a form of resilience to disruptive narratives around adoption. By understanding how adoptees respond to and handle these conversations, we hope to provide insight for other Chinese American adoptees and their social networks in how to navigate these situations and best support adoptees in communicating their story. 

Gentrification occurs when primarily non-white cities and/or neighborhood are renovated, overtime, to entice potential white and/or affluent residents, simultaneously uprooting long-term residents. Gentrification occurring in the Central District (CD) of Seattle, WA has been a devastating force for Black residents. In 1970, Blacks made up over 73 percent of the CD. Today, Blacks have been displaced to primarily south regions of King County; whereby, the CD’s Black population is below 20 percent. Gentrification echoes the legacy of displacement of Black people in the United States. Black people have always been tasked with mourning home. Blacks were forced into slavery, from Africa to North America. Freed in the mid-1860s, where the southern regions resembled genocidal environments for Black residents, Black Americans have always searched for home. This search for home later influenced the Great Migration, where Blacks moved to the north and Mideastern regions of America for greater economic opportunity; however, they were then met with racially restrictive housing covenants such as red-lining. Today, Blacks are removed from their communities due to gentrification. Based on guided conversations, participation, interviews, and a collection of photographic imagery, Operation Heal the CD examines: how Black Seattleites' response to gentrification correlates with the historical and cultural context of home; how the grievance of home is displayed by Black Seattleites― who cultivated a home within the CD, coherent with their culture and history― influences their relationship to home overtime; what Black Seattleites, intergenerational, understand to be potential causes, influences, and consequences of gentrification? Preliminary results indicate that although the CD has undergone gentrification, Black Seattleites associate the neighborhood in relations to a cultural mecca. Understanding gentrification on a local context aids a greater understanding of historical implications. This study contributes to broader observations occurring contemporaneously on a national scale.